


It Is Written

by Violin Ghost (OldPossum)



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-16
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-02-25 14:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2624672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldPossum/pseuds/Violin%20Ghost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five things that might have been, and one thing that was, in the lives of Caspian Tenth of that name and his lady, the star’s daughter. Drabbles, 100 words each.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Is Written

He faces Aslan's country and sails, with light in his eyes and a song in his soul. Duty deserted, land abandoned--his heart's desire is foremost. There is no reprimand from the Lion, and he puts out to sea for the last time, his companions' sorrowful glances the only jarring notes in a symphony brimming with the sweetness of homecoming.

He looks back once, thinking of golden hair and promises ill-kept, and never sets eyes on living lands again.

By lofty pillars, the daughter of a star waits untiringly, looking to the East for a man who does not return.

 

They do not trust her. They take one last look at the cruel stone knife, and point their prow eastward, leaving the feast uneaten, the Sleepers dreaming. They break the enchantment and send the two sovereigns home, but never see the dance of the birds in the sky, never hear the shivering song of Dawn, for it is not theirs to witness, they of little faith.

But on lonely nights in the Cair, Caspian thinks of her sometimes, of her eyes and the grave way she smiled, of her bare feet and soft voice, and finds that he regrets.

 

When he returns from the utter East, she makes her choice and does not go back with him. She awaits the day her father is young enough to become a star again, and on that day, she rises up with him and treads the great dance. She learns the song of Night and smiles upon the world below her, searching, always searching.

When his wife is at rest and his children in bed, he tells his little ones stories of the girl he had met at the beginning of the end of the world. The stars twinkle upon them.

 

Narnia is besieged. The silent Earth people march against them, thousands strong behind the blank-faced Prince Rilian and his lady all in green. Cair Paravel, fair and forlorn, is the last stronghold, and the scattered Narnians flock there to make a final, desperate stand, as glorious and as hopeless as Swanwhite's against the White Witch.

"You will stay with me, love?" says Caspian, last of his name, kissing his star.

"Until the end, my lord," she says. The loss of her son has broken her, but a light still glimmers faintly in her eyes.

They fight, and they fall.

 

He never swears to find the lost lords, never sails to the end of the world. He lives happily and prosperously, full of love for Narnia and his subjects, and he becomes as glorious as the sovereigns of old. She sings to the dawn and tends the table, contented with her wise, grave father and quiet life. And both are vaguely aware of an emptiness behind the words they utter, the lives they lead.

He dies unwed, and when her father is gone, she wanders among the empty lands of the East, searching for something she had never lost.

 

**(and one thing that was)**

Every day, she watched for a hint of a white sail, for the faint outline of a ship. She left the abandoned sailor to his feast and sat at the beach for hours on end, trailing her fingers through the satin sand.

On an achingly clear day, the Dawn Treader came into view; and then she saw him, waving from the deck; and suddenly he was before her, shy and boyish and hopeful.

He took her hands and raised them to his lips, and she saw her life with him stretch out before her, rainbowed with possibilities. She smiled.

 


End file.
